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MICHIGAN’S GUEST STARMETRO DETROIT NATIVE JAIME RAY NEWMAN RISES THROUGH THE RANKS

Jaime Ray Newman has quite the list of television roles – Castle, CSI: New

York, Grimm, and Drop Dead Diva to name a few – and it’s earned her a

shout out from the New York Post, naming her the number one Guest Star

of 2012.

“Grimm was defi nitely a highlight. I get recognized for that a

lot. It was a character completely different from what I’ve done before,”

Newman says. “They took a molded imprint of my face. I was in prosthetic

makeup for about fi ve hours, playing a crazy bad ass motorcycle-driving,

leather-clad, angry, jealous werewolf murderer. It was one of the most fun

experiences that I’ve ever had.”

Best known for her role as Kat on ABC’s Eastwick co-starring

Lindsay Price and Rebecca Romijn, Newman’s big break came in 2002

with her role of Kristina Cassadine in General Hospital. From there, her

television career took off and her fi lm career has been on a steady climb

with roles in Catch Me If You Can, Living ‘til the End, Rubberneck and out this

year the $100 million dollar animated feature remake of Tarzan.

Newman is currently in Chicago fi lming the new ABC series

Mind Games with Steve Zahn and Christian Slater, which premieres in

March. “I play an ex-con within this company of criminals. My character

meets Christian Slater’s character in a work release program,” Newman

says. “He hires me to do this one off-job for the company, to fool somebody

by using my skills in a legal way. Then my character becomes part of this

company of people living on the edge.”

Newman was born and raised in Farmington Hills, Mich., and

graduated high school from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Shortly after, she

moved to Hollywood to pursue acting straight out of college. Her par-

ents and sister, Beth Newman, who runs global PR for J Brand Jeans, have

joined her in California and the family visits Michigan frequently.

“It’s wonderful shooting in Chicago now because my husband

and I are able to drive to Michigan every couple of weeks to visit my

90-year-old grandmother, who lives in Bloomfi eld Hills,” Newman says.

“I have so many memories growing up around Detroit. Cranbrook, espe-

cially. I took my husband there, and he couldn’t believe where I went to

high school. He was in shock. I think that I knew at the time that most kids

don’t get this kind of experience. I don’t think I ever took it for granted.”

When listing her favorite things about being from Michigan, Cran-

brook ranked number one. Educationally and career-wise, she credits the

school as having the most impact on her artistically at an early age. “Cran-

brook was the most nurturing. They nurtured creative spirits like no other

school I have ever seen. It’s just so aesthetically beautiful; they love educa-

tion in a way that makes it really interesting, fun and cool. The cool kids were

the smart kids. It was such an artistically pure place to go to high school. You

feel from the culture and the architecture itself just how beautiful it is,” she

says.

Newman married international award–winning director Guy

Nattiv in early 2012. “Guy and I met in Israel about fi ve years ago. He had

a movie in Sundance around the time and had just signed with an agent at

William Morris, who just happened to be my sister’s boyfriend,” Newman

says. “I went to Israel to decompress and visit family. My sister’s boyfriend

told me that I had to meet this amazing client of his.”

The day she was fl ying back to Los Angeles, they met. “It felt like I

had been hit over the head with a hammer,” she recalls. “It took a long time

for this to come into place because we were 10,000 miles apart and did

the long distance thing for three and a half years.” With what she credits

as faith in their relationship and their higher power, everything eventually

aligned, much like that fi rst meeting. “He received his green card about

six months ago and moved here. So here we were, married and still doing

long distance,” she says.

Of her husband, Newman notes that he’s “an amazing director.”

His last fi lm Mabul won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival as well as

six Israeli Academy Awards, and he’s been to Sundance a handful of times.

Next up for Newman, she’s back on set in Chicago for Mind

Games and is developing fi lm projects with her husband, who just sold a

series to TNT. The fi rst fi lm that Nattiv and her are teaming up on, Nattiv is

also writing. His fi rst American fi lm based on a property that this talented

duo secured rights to and hope to fi lm in Michigan. We certainly hope so,

too. — Jennifer Champagne

Jaime Ray Newman